Emerging network devices include hardware elements that are configured to efficiently perform certain packet processing tasks, such as parsing. In addition, the emerging devices also include software processing elements that perform different processing operations using, for example, data that is parsed from the packets. The hardware elements of the network devices need to efficiently transfer data structures to the software processing elements, and vice versa.
The description above is presented as a general overview of related art in this field and should not be construed as an admission that any of the information it contains constitutes prior art against the present patent application.